Scars
by BeautyIsInTheEyeOf
Summary: What happens when House is lost, alone, drunk, cold, and soaking wet? Read to find out! First FanFiction, so please review! Warning: Child abuse
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Okay, this is my first FanFiction ever! Well, my first FanFiction posted on this account in this fandom. Once upon a time, an 11-year-old me wrote a Victorious FanFiction, but I can't even remember it. Anyway, I'm thirteen now and am just trying this again so please try to be at least a little bit nice? :) I promise I love House! (And yes, the title was derived from the song "Scars" by Papa Roach, but I'm not sure if I will be using more of the song in the story, but it is definitely not a full-out SongFic.) If you guys like the first chapter, I'll keep going.

**Warnings:** Some descriptive child abuse, probably swearing, but I really don't know where this might go.

**Rating:** T, just to be safe

**Disclaimer:** I do not own House, M.D. or any of its characters; I do not own the song Scars.

Cold. On a typical, boring Saturday night in a New Jersey February, that's all Dr. Gregory House sensed when he first woke up. _Cold._ He hated the cold. It gave his leg hell, and even in his drunken, numbed state, which never made him feel that numb, just more raw than ever, House could feel his leg locked up and trembling under his dark jeans. Not two seconds later, after his right hand had instinctively reached for his poor excuse of a thigh to make sure some of it was still there, House realized he was lying flat on his back in a patch of ice and snow. Another gust of wind sobered the diagnostician up, and he realized not only was he cold, but he was _soaking wet._

"_You will never, ever, ever amount to anything! Do you hear me, boy?" John House bellowed at his ten-year-old son before dunking him back into the tub of ice water and pulling him up roughly._

_ "Y-yes sir, I understand," little Gregory House sniffled while trying to catch his breath before having to go back under again._

_ "Shut up, and get those tears off your face and out of my sight! You will NEVER be anything, much less a good soldier, if you can't even handle some cold water! What are you going to do when you're captured by the enemy? You wouldn't ever be able to handle it," the boy's father insisted, looking at his son with disgust._

_ "I-I'm sor-," Gregory started before being pushed down into the freezing water filled with what little dignity he had before his most recent punishment. _

_ Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds. Cold. Soaking wet. Thirty seconds. The small, emaciated shell of a ten-year-old struggled against his military father's hands, begging to come up for air. Why couldn't he come up? He had promised never to trip and scuff up a wall again, so why couldn't he be allowed to breathe? Forty-five seconds. Stars began to appear and bright lights flashed when finally, finally Gregory House felt the pressure come off of his shoulders at just over a minute spent underwater. He popped up immediately, bent over the edge of the porcelain torture machine and panted, trying desperately to get his breath back, not even caring about how bare his entire body was, not even caring about what his father thought, just breathing slow and deep._

Dr. House came out of his flashback with a gasp, like he was sucking in a breath that existed thirty-five years ago. Jolting straight up and realizing his protesting leg, he sighed again and tried to figure out how the hell he was going to get home with no phone, keys, car, or even his cane.

**A/N: **Okay, that was my first attempt... please review, if only so I know if I should continue this or not... thanks! If I continue, chapters will be much longer… I just need a little reassurance and encouragement!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Okay, received about three nice requests (thank you!) for a continuation of the story, so here I am again with chapter two. Just a side note, this is set during season four, when Kutner, Thirteen, and Taub are the "new" team, but Foreman, Cameron, and Chase will definitely be around. There will probably not be much mention of Amber, because in my House-world, her and Wilson never got together.

Please continue to review, I am always open to comments and criticism!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own House, M.D. or the song Scars. I wish I did, though.

The next morning, a familiar brown-haired, chocolate-eyed oncologist woke up with a hangover from the sixth circle of hell and a pounding headache to match. Groaning at his _stupid_ alarm with the most _irritating _beep that he kept around anyway, James Wilson convinced himself to roll out of his warm bed and to slam his fist down on the offending clock. Giving his eyes thirty seconds to adjust to the light streaming into the window of his apartment, Wilson tried to figure out what on earth had happened the night before.

He swore it was a normal night out drinking with House that he regretted when arising in the morning, but there was something about last night Wilson couldn't wrap his pained head around yet. Thinking back, the doctor could recall leaving the hospital after a twelve-year-old patient who fought painstakingly hard finally lost his final battle in a five-year war with leukemia. After watching the boy struggle to keep his organs functioning during his last few days on this earth and finally sucumbing to his last painful breath as the family cried silent, grief-stricken tears over the child's bedside, Wilson couldn't take being inside the hospital anymore and left early, grabbing a half-asleep-with-boredom House on his way out. At that point, the two went to a particularly shady bar and Wilson drank away his day as the older diagnostician tried to set a new level of drunkenness for himself.

_ "House," the younger man started as he stumbled out the door of the bar and clinging to his older friend, "call me a cab. You come, too. Can't drive. Drunk."_

_ "Yeah, I noticed. I'll call little brother a cab. I'll make it home myself," House stated, obviously able to hold his liquor better than his only friend._

_ "No, House. Don't leave," Wilson slurred, trying to convince House to come with him. _

Even in his drunken state, he was trying to keep House safe from himself. Realizing this, House smirked down at the shorter oncologist and pulled out his phone, flipping it open and calling the nearest cab service. Within a matter of minutes, he was shoving Wilson in the backseat and told the driver his address and tipping him so he'd make sure Wilson got inside his apartment safely.

_ "Tell me you got home safely, okay House? Don't be stupid and hurt yourself," Wilson called finally as the door shut and the cabbie sped off._

Finally back in the present moment, Wilson bolted up and checked his phone, seeing that House hadn't texted or called. _"Shit!"_ Wilson cursed, and quickly flipped open his phone and hit his speed dial, getting no answer from House.

It was still cold and the clothes of a specific blue-eyed diagnostician were still damp as Dr. House woke up that Sunday morning to honking horns, sirens, and talking people. Opening his eyes slowly, House's eyes were assaulted brutally with a sun shining much brighter than his personality. Taking a few minutes to make sure his not-thigh was still attached to his body and working through the previous, extensive-drinking-after-he-sent-Wilson-home night, the doctor opened his eyes and took a look at his surroundings.

Slumped up against the side of the bar and sore as all get-out, Dr. House rubbed his piercing blue eyes and spotted his cane just off the sidewalk that ran in front of the bar and faintly remembered lying on a patch of ice somewhere, vomiting, then crawling somewhere to die, only to wake up in the same, disappointing world again. He tried to hoist himself up and succeeded in making it halfway up before having to clutch the brick wall behind him before he fell. "Fuck," the brilliant diagnostician muttered under his breath, before pulling himself all the way up and refusing to fall, if only to keep his dignity in check. He wasn't dying, so he could keep it a while longer. Tripping all the way and pulling his uncooperative leg along the cracked and unforgiving sidewalk, House finally reached his cane and bent down to grab it quickly before leaning on it heavily and trying to breathe through the stabbing sensation in his right thigh. "Pathetic. He was right, he was always right," House snarled at himself before feeling through his pockets to find a couple Vicodin and nothing else. He swallowed them down quickly and leaned his head back to wait for them to take effect, contemplating how he'd get back to his apartment.

**A/N: **Alright, there was chapter two... suggestions? Comments? Criticism? Review and let me know what you thought, I'd love to hear your thoughts!


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I wasn't particularly sure how I wanted this chapter to play out or anything like that, it just popped out of nowhere, kind of like this whole story did. Anyways, I wanted to say thank you to anyone who has reviewed - they've all been really positive and encouraging and I'm feeling a bit more comfortable with writing this story now, because I wasn't sure how the FanFic community was going to respond to a thirteen-year-old trying to write anything meaningful. Please keep reviewing, I love to hear your thoughts!

**Disclaimer:** Don't own House, M.D., don't own Scars.

And with that, here comes chapter three!

"God _damn it!_" House whisper-screamed under his breath while he attempted to massage out his uncooperative thigh as it seized up under his strong hands. Standing in essentially the same spot as he did forty-five minutes ago, the still-hungover man with a headache that could have topped his leg pain on a good day when drowning in Vicodin reevaluated his current situation.

"Alright, obviously if Wilson and I came here straight from PPTH in that short amount of time, I have to be somewhat close, maybe on someone's way. If I limp my sorry-ass, hungover self in the direction I think is of the hospital, the closer I get, the bigger chance that someone's going to see me stumbling around on the side of the road and pick me up," the diagnostician reasoned to himself under his breath before realizing what a complete and utter disaster that plan was.

Seeing as he hadn't moved two steps in forty-five minutes, the fact that it was Sunday and nobody at the hospital was probably even thinking about going in, and the problem that just about anyone who was heading to work wanted to see him miserable and in breakthrough pain, House realized he was most absolutely screwed. Limping off in hopefully the right direction and dragging his pain-radiating thigh behind him anyway, the brilliant mind with the intelligent eyes started off in hopes of getting to PPTH.

[Line Break]

After dialing House's number and hitting call no less than ten times with no answer, James Wilson finally gave up on reaching his (at the moment, absolutely stupid) friend by phone and resorted to taking a shower in hopes that would make him feel a little more put together.

Showering, brushing his teeth, fluffing his hair in that ridiculous way that House hated but he impulsively did, and downing another aspirin to keep the hangover at bay, the brown-eyed oncologist kept himself busy for about forty minutes before becoming frustrated with the lack of messages on his phone's screen. Wilson quickly got dressed in his work-appropriate attire and lazily tied another awful tie before ripping it off and going at it again, still wondering where the hell his probably comatose friend was. If anything, the older man should be banging on Wilson's door as loud as possible to spike another, more painful headache. The fact that he wasn't was what worried Wilson, but he told himself House was an adult and could take care of himself before checking himself in the mirror one last time and heading out the door to catch up on paperwork after explaining to Cuddy why he left early the day before.

_ "You are the absolute scum of the earth. I hate you, your mother hates you, everyone hates you. You are unloveable Gregory, you hear me?" Gregory House's military father barked down on him._

_ "Yes sir, I-I'm sorry, I'll do better next time, I p-promise, please just don't make me run this drill again, please," a thirteen-year-old House stuttered at his father before he cried out in pain at the next blow directly to his jaw. _

_ "Knock your shit off, Gregory. I'll beat your face in until you drop that stutter and can efficiently move yourself down a hallway without making a sound and tripping over yourself," John House breathed in his son's face before delivering a quick slap to back of the boy's head and questioning him, "got it?" The underweight boy nodded quickly and yelped as his father twisted his arm behind his back a bit tighter and quickly barked a "yes, sir!"_

_ Pushed down the long hallway by his father again, the small boy with the bright blue eyes took off at a sprint, trying to jump over traps of sharp nails set by his father in order to teach his son to "avoid the enemy." Almost the entire way down the pathway, Gregory took one faltered step when he twisted his already fractured rib the wrong way and brought his foot down on a particularly rusty patch of nails and cried out, then hobbled his way to the finish line of the drill in hopes of not angering his father. Of course, that never worked, and only gave the boy a bloody nose and promises of half-food rations for the next week before being dragged, falling behind all the way, down the hall and back outside for the night._

Back in the present and recovering from his flashback that reminded him so much of himself now, some thirty years later and still dragging himself down a path to a promise of more pain, House quickly faked steady breathing and hobbled on.

[Line Break]

Finally on his way into work, Wilson sighed and waited at the bus stop, deciding to stop at the bar him and House had went to last night to pick up his keys that the bartender confiscated. Jumping on and off the bus within ten minutes, the oncologist looked at the outside of the building and regretted the last night but still knowing he'd do it again and stepped inside, his mind on House the whole time.

"Sir?" Wilson called to the man cleaning up and restocking shelves.

"Yep, what can I do for you?" the tall, built man called back at the brown-eyed oncologist.

"I left my keys here last night, just came by to pick them up."

"Alright, look through this basket and find yours. Shouldn't be hard, there's not too many here," the employee, apparently named "Willie" according to his nametag, quipped as he handed Wilson a container with a few sets of keys in it.

Finding them quickly, Wilson pulled his out and called a "thanks" over his shoulder and was ready to reclaim his car and hopefully, some of his life before he paused and turned back to Willie. "Hey, have you seen a taller guy with a cane at all since about midnight or one last night?" Wilson inquired.

"Yeah, there was kind of an older looking man with a cane wandering around outside and down that sidewalk this morning," Willie answered, blankly pointing out the window before getting back to cleaning off tables from the night prior.

"Thanks, I appreciate it!" the oncologist called while walking out the door, deciding to take his car and travel down the way Willie had directed him in hopes of finding House, reasoning that his friend could not get overly far on his own. His theory held true, and within ten minutes of finding his keys and pulling out of Wild Willie's (makes sense now, huh?) Bar, Wilson had seen the older diagnostician sweating, struggling, and soaked and attempting to haul himself down the sidewalk. Not realizing House was just coming out of a flashback or even knowing that he could send House spiraling straight into one with an unexpected noise, Wilson parked his car and sharply yelled down the path, "House!"

**A/N: **Longest chapter yet! Honestly, I am three chapters in and I am already understanding what my favorite FanFiction writers are talking about when they ask for reviews because they're awesome! Please keep reviewing, it makes me smile to see a new review pop up!


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Sorry this update took a bit longer than usual... Student council, every day cross country workouts, and weight lifting every other day keeps me busy, not to mention that my wifi has been out and was just fixed today, so I am finally able to put up a new chapter! Please keep reviewing, it means a ton to me!

**Disclaimer**: You know the drill. I don't own House and I don't own Scars. Well, the song anyway.

Gregory House's mind was still swarming with images of his brutal, hard father with that familiar, unforgiving look in his eyes before he pushed his child down the hall when Wilson called his name. Suddenly yanked straight back into his flashback he was just pulling himself out of, the pace of House's breathing increased and sweat rushed out of his pores. Not realizing it was Wilson who had called to him, the diagnostician quickly flipped around towards his friend with a wild look in his eyes and an uncontrollable urge to _just get the hell away_.

"House! I've been worried about you for hours, what do you think you've been doing out here alone?" the oncologist scolded the older man, not yet recognizing the fight-or-flight response in his friend until he came closer. "House?" he questioned again.

_ Get out of my head. Get the hell out of my head. I left you thirty years ago, and I don't need you back here again. _House struggled internally with himself, trying to fight off his father mentally while the command 'be still, shut up, and take it' still remained in his mind. Hearing his name called again and again only reminded him of the verbal abuse inflicted upon him for not finishing a drill fast enough, or eating more than his daily ration, or getting into trouble yet again.

_ "What is he doing?" _Wilson questioned internally as he watched House struggle with himself. After a second of using his prior knowledge, the oncologist figured he was just hungover, cranky, in pain, and being his typical-House self, and stupidly reached out to grab the other man when he came within reach.

It was a big mistake. House, already scared to death and metaphorically drowning in memories of his father literally drowning him, forcing him to walk on nails, and throwing him outside for the night after a beating, dropped his cane and struck out at Wilson as soon as the hands closed in on his shoulders and pulled him closer. Flailing, sweating, breathing hard, and moaning unintelligible words to himself, House fell after hitting Wilson and promptly threw up before rolling over onto his side into the fetal position without realizing what he was doing in his panicked state.

[Line Break]

Rubbing his jaw where House had hit him, quite forcefully he might add, Wilson bent down next to his friend and wondered what the hell had happened and how he was supposed to get House into the car and back to his apartment. Quickly taking his pulse and noting that it was far over normal, Wilson concluded he'd had an anxiety attack for some reason he could decipher later and began shaking the diagnostician while saying loudly, "House!"

Ten or fifteen minutes of shaking and shouting later, House re-opened his eyes, vomited again, and began kneading out the cramp overtaking his thigh before trying to hoist himself up. Finally recognizing Wilson, who was just happy he had gotten his friend awake and up, House looked at his jaw and cocked his head. "What'd you do to your face?" he inquired in a weak voice, then internally yelled at himself for his voice cracking.

The oncologist gaped down at his friend before trying to, more tentatively and slowly this time, wrap his arms around House's back to pull him up. House, being his deflective self, batted his hands away and stated, "I'm a big boy."

"Of course you are," Wilson responded, figuring that House just did not want to be touched after spending the night in a bar or outside in freezing weather, all the while he was having anxiety attacks over something Wilson could not figure out. Did he get into a fight last night? Within a couple minutes, House had sat up, grabbed his cane he had thrown down haphazardly earlier, and began to push himself up with one hand while keeping his right leg straight. A few minutes later, the famous diagnostician was still in the same position, just with more sweat pouring off his forehead and more labored breathing. House clenched his teeth and with one push and a couple pulls, hoisted himself up into more of a crouched position and slowly tried to stand to his full height.

Watching this, Wilson put his face into his hands and wondered why House always had to be _so damn difficult_. Every inch of Wilson's body urged to reach out and grab the man to steady him, but his brain told him that House needed to learn to accept help on his own. Still, watching House bite through his lips and turn his knuckles white with an iron-grip on his smooth, wooden cane tugged on the oncologist's heartstrings more than he let on. When House had finally reached a standing position and Wilson could tell his heart rate must be through the roof, the oncologist contemplated taking him into the hospital because he was obviously in ridiculous amounts of pain, both physical and emotional, yet he just could not figure out why. Still, the brown-eyed oncologist let the taller man battle a few painstaking steps. However, when Wilson heard the smallest whimper emerge from House's throat, which he was sure he wasn't supposed to hear, he had to step in. Pulling the Vicodin out of his pocket that Wilson kept for emergencies but almost never let House use, Wilson poured three into the older man's waiting palm.

"I love you," House responded sarcastically before throwing the pills back and waiting for them to take effect. After a few minutes, they had taken the edge off of the pain in his thigh that made him think of a thousand-degree set of teeth gnawing at his leg. When Wilson reached out again to steady House, the diagnostician flinched away reflexively and mentally scolded himself. _"It's Wilson. Not him. Get over it,"_ House thought to himself.

Pondering the possible causes of House's edginess and anxiety today, the shorter man reached out again, slower this time, with the diagnostician watching the whole way, and touched House on the arm before wrapping his hand around House's forearm to ensure that he would not fall. "Okay?" Wilson asked.

"Okay," House replied shakily, feeling embarrassed at the thought of Wilson having to help him across the street like he was an old man who couldn't fend for himself, and feeling more embarrassed at the thought of his father ever seeing him this weak.

Wilson noticed his friend's breathing lock up for a moment when they began hobbling towards his car. Eventually, the oncologist had had enough of seeing him struggle and ducked under House's left arm, as was tradition, and a few minutes later, had House seated into the car. House clenched his jaw again and rubbed out his leg, glad to know where he was, but not how he got there. As Wilson sat back down, House asked again while looking at a bruise bloom over his friend's jaw, innocently enough, "really though, what did you do to your face? Did your prostitute last night like it rough?"

Looking over at his friend before he glared and sighed, Wilson started the car and stated, "You're an idiot," recognizing House's smirk, Wilson added on, "we need to talk."

**A/N:** Alright, can anyone catch The Fault in Our Stars reference? :) It shouldn't be too hard, I just love that book and movie and had to include it!

Hopefully, I'll be able to get in a few more updates before July, because July is when everything picks up and goes crazy for me... between the 4th of July, vacation, two running camps, my birthday, and the ridiculousness and craziness of everyday life, I don't have much time, but I'm still going to try to write a lot. In addition to this, I have a couple stories in mind that I'd like to start after this one concludes, but Scars definitely still has a ways to go.

Please keep reviewing! It makes me so happy to see new reviews.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Here we are again with the fifth chapter of Scars! Thank you to anyone who has reviewed. It's made writing this really fun, otherwise I never would've wanted to continue. And just to make sure everyone is in the same place, we are starting this chapter at late Sunday morning, House time.

**Disclaimer:** I'm seriously waiting for the day David Shore or Fox or whoever owns House now to get on FanFiction and says, legally, "I own House, M.D."

Well, I'm not David Shore or a Fox representative, so I don't own House, M.D. and I don't own the song Scars.

Here we go!

"I don't want to go to the hospital," House stopped, then jabbed at his friend, "I'm not the irresponsible one who left work early to drink myself into oblivion."

"Yes, but even if you didn't have work to do, you still drunk yourself into oblivion and worried me for hours _and_ made me drive around to find you and pick your sorry ass up," Wilson glared up at House.

Only a few minutes into the ride, House had realized Wilson was taking him to PPTH and had objected quickly. _"There is no need for anyone at that godforsaken place to see me shivering and shaking, soaking wet and cold, and this fucked up emotionally and physically,"_ the diagnostician had told himself in his own head. "And turn up the damn heater, Wilson," House commanded in a sharp voice, but Wilson knew he was really saying, _"fuck you Wilson, I don't want to go so I'm going to yell demands at you until you take me home_._"_

"House, until you can tell me what the hell happened to you last night, what you were doing this morning, or where any of your things are, you're going to PPTH. Shower, sit in your office and play with your ball, nap, go do your fellow's clinic duty to pay them back for how much of yours they've done, I don't care. But you're staying at the hospital until later so I can at least check you over quickly to make sure you're actually okay, and you're not going to whine. Got it?" the brown-eyed man told House.

House, scoffing at the suggestion of doing clinic duty, retorted with a sharp, whiny, "no. I don't want to go, I don't need to go, I'm fine!" For added effect, he flashed Wilson the most ridiculous pouting face he had ever seen and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Five-year-olds, quite similar to the one you're acting like, don't get to go unsupervised, so neither do you. Now, what's the real reason you don't want to go in? You don't even have to work today, you can spend your whole time tormenting nurses and students uninterrupted, and I know you jump at any chance to do that," Wilson responded to House's kindergartener act.

"I don't want to go, I don't need to go, and it's a waste of my time."

"House, deal with it. Much worse things could be happening to you this morning had I not gotten you."

The brilliant diagnostician let out a grumble then resigned his argument. Sitting in the passenger seat of Wilson's car, not even being allowed to drive his own motorcycle was not something House wanted to be doing. There was no more words spoken between the two friends as the younger of the two drove them both to the hospital, but Wilson could not help but glance over at his friend occasionally. The oncologist wondered what the cause of House's edginess, anxiety, and more-than-normal hostility was today as the older doctor rubbed his leg viciously, apparently to no avail. Just attributing House's obnoxiousness to his hangover and his leg, Wilson pulled into his parking spot at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

[Line Break]

Meanwhile, more thoughts than usual were suffocating Gregory House's brain. He was angry that Wilson didn't allow him to make his own decisions, angry that he had to go into the hospital to see people he really did not want to see, angry that his leg had a hole in it and that even the vacancy of muscle could hurt, but most of all, angry at himself for landing himself in this position. _"You did this to yourself, so suck it up and deal with the consequences. There are far worse people who could have found you and had to give a damn about you this morning. Like Cameron," _House thought to himself, then let out a miniscule smirk at his last comment, which he quickly covered with his hand and stared out the window, realizing that they were already in the PPTH parking lot.

"Let's go inside, I'll leave you alone for a few hours, then we're both going to the clinic to check you over. Get some water and sleep, you look like hell," Wilson sighed, snapping House out of his thoughtful state.

"Yeah, tell that to the left side of your jaw," House quipped before limping off inside and quickly out of sight, but in the general direction of his office. Wilson could only hope that House would do as he was told and make his life just a little less hellish for one day. Shaking his head and locking his car, Wilson started towards the door of the hospital and approached Cuddy's office, mentally preparing himself for a lecture before knocking and entering.

"Cuddy?" Wilson called as he walked closer to Cuddy's desk, not fully understanding why he was presenting his case to his boss rather than sneaking by, unnoticed, to his office.

"What happened to your jaw?" she asked before her subordinate could get another word out. Already knowing he was most likely here to explain his early departure the day before, Cuddy waived it off and told him it was fine, she knew it wouldn't happen again, and that he was here today to make up for it anyway.

Past the boring actual employee-boss interactions, Cuddy asked Wilson again, "why is your jaw red and starting to bruise?"

Not particularly wanting to answer this question because even he didn't know what caused House's outburst, Wilson quickly dodged the question by saying, "I have paperwork that needs to be done by a certain time today, I'm going to get started," and left Cuddy alone at her desk with her impeccable perfection, wondering what was going on with her star oncologist.

[Line Break]

Later into the day, Wilson realized it was already approaching 6 PM and decided he had done enough catch-up work for the day. Gathering his coat, leather bag, and some take-home paperwork, Wilson began the short walk to his next-door office neighbor, House, and opened the door. Pleased to find that the room was dark and House was actually lying on his couch, appearing to be sleeping (albeit, not peacefully, as he was clearly shifting around quite a bit, but sleeping nonetheless) as he was told, Wilson flipped on the light switch and waited for the diagnostician to wake up.

He wasn't disappointed. Within seconds, the tired, older doctor was squirming all over his long couch and striking out at enemies the oncologist couldn't see. Breathing hard and unevenly with a face covered in a sheen of sweat, House finally woke himself up and looked around the room frantically before his eyes rested on Wilson. Realizing what just happened and quickly coming up with an excuse to hide his panic attack, House looked away from his friend in the doorway.

"A little unnecessary to scare the shit out of a hungover cripple hopped up on Vicodin, is it not?" House bit at Wilson, hoping his response would be enough to fool him into thinking House was telling the truth.

Ignoring the diagnostician's comment, Wilson skipped to his surprise at House listening to his suggestion of sleeping. "So, since when do you ever listen to what I say?

"Since I have a headache concocted by Satan himself from last night's outing that mixed with lightheadedness from the Vicodin. Trust me, nothing I'm doing is because you recommended it. If I followed in your example, I'd have seven ex-wives and would need to be needed by everyone."

Chuckling to himself at his friend's verbal stabs, Wilson paged the receptionist in the clinic, Maria, and asked her to keep an exam room clear for Wilson to use. "Clinic. Let's go," Wilson commanded of his friend, who grabbed his cane and stood up before whacking the oncologist on the shin with his long, smooth cane.

"We can go now," House grinned while Wilson grabbed his shin and began rubbing it out.

**A/N:** Kind of a filler chapter, but it's the longest one yet to make up for it! We will definitely have some drama and revelations coming up within the next few chapters. Get ready! :)

Please keep reviewing, it makes me so happy!


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** As I have started writing this chapter, I am already crazy excited for you guys to read it! I hope you like it as much as I do!

**Disclaimer**: I don't own House and I don't own the song Scars.

Finally in Clinic Exam Room Two, House popped himself up onto the exam table and rubbed his thigh out, waiting quietly for Wilson to set his things down.

"Well, aren't you just being a model patient for me today?" Wilson commented, noting how quiet his typically obnoxious friend was being.

Scoffing up at the brown-eyed oncologist, House gave Wilson a glare with his piercing blue eyes and returned to the activity of massaging out a cramp in his leg.

"Alright House, let's get this over with," Wilson said while he pulled out his penlight and flashed it over House's eyes. "Pupils are of equal size and aren't dilated, so you don't have a concussion."

"Thanks, I'm a doctor, too," House bit up at the oncologist. He just wanted to go home. There was no reason for him to be here, seeing as his headache was far better than it had been this morning and there was minimal pain besides the usual burn in his thigh.

Ignoring the diagnostician, Wilson began feeling at the back of House's head, noting several small cuts just above his hairline. Getting a better look, the brown-eyed man wandered around to the back of House and reassessed the cuts, noticing more and more small, papercut-like lines on his friend's neck and hidden by his hair. Deciding they were not a serious injury but still curious as to how they got there, Wilson piped up, "Where'd the cuts on the back of your head and neck come from?"

Wilson's question, unbeknownst to him, shot House back into two memories: One he'd tried to hide from for thirty-five years, and one that he'd just recovered from his drunken state last night. "Probably got cut up on some ice or the sidewalk or something last night," House answered after some hesitation.

Inferring that the already vulnerable diagnostician had most likely fallen, Wilson made a mental note to do a routine examination on House's thigh to make sure he hadn't injured it further. Wilson pulled out some cotton swabs and an antiseptic. "Gonna burn," he murmured before pressing a soaked cotton ball into the cuts on House's neck. Surprisingly, the older man didn't even flinch away from the stinging sensation.

"Take your shirt off, I need to see if you have any abrasions or other open wounds if you fell last night," Wilson instructed.

House deflected with, "Wilson, if you're gay for me and want to see me half-naked, just tell me. I promise I won't judge you." He smirked and waited for Wilson's response.

Rolling his eyes at his friend's childish antics, Wilson growled down at his patient and repeated, "House. Shirt off, now." Wilson never could understand why his best friend had to be so damn difficult all the time.

Looking down, House told Wilson, "I don't want to and there is nothing wrong with my back. Besides, if I fell on my back, I'd have a shirt on, therefore it would not be scraped up, therefore not susceptible to any type of infection like open cuts on my neck would be. Let it go." House hoped this would be enough to literally keep Wilson off his back.

"House, I am younger than you, stronger than you, and more put-together than you right now. Remove your shirt or I will do it for you," Wilson said in that stern tone only Wilson himself could do.

_ Get yourself into the tub or I will do it for you. Put your hands against the wall and stay still or I will do it for you. Wrap the rope around your hands or I will do it for you. Drag yourself up those stairs and into your room or I will do it for you._ Memories of House's father and his threats all came rushing back to the blue-eyed diagnostician, but most powerful of all was _to take off that shirt so I can belt you, or I will do it for you._

Seeing that House had zoned out and assuming that he was just stalling for time and being his regular self, Wilson grabbed the back of House's shirt and pulled it up quickly, causing House to snap into a full-fledged panic attack. Pushing Wilson away and ducking and rolling off the exam table onto his left leg, House backed himself up against the wall of the exam room and darted his eyes from left to right. "Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch me," House mumbled over and over again, trying to keep what he thought were his father's hands off of him.

[Line Break]

House had slid to the floor now and his eyes had a lost-and-kicked puppy look in them. "Please Dad, don't," he whimpered to himself, burying his head in his arms, but never crying.

Wilson wondered if he had heard right as he watched House fold in on himself; however, after several minutes of watching his friend mumble to himself and bite through his lips, the oncologist had decided it was time to bring House out of his panic attack. "House! House it's me, it's Wilson. Come on. Uncover your ears, House. You're okay. Come on," the oncologist repeated as a mantra to his friend, hoping to break him out of this episode. "House!"

[Line Break]

"House!" His last name resonated in his mind, ricocheting off the walls of his cranium and bouncing home into the center of his brain. "House!" he heard again, and looked up to see Wilson there, peering straight into his eyes. "House! Come on, let's get you back up onto the exam table," Wilson told him, standing up and gently pulling up on House's forearm. Following blindly, the diagnostician stumbled back up and sat back down on the table, never looking up. He had realized what just happened and was horribly ashamed of the panic attack he had in front of Wilson. _"God damn it, now he's obviously going to figure out everything! Way to keep control of yourself, dumbass,"_ House berated himself.

"Hey, it's alright. Let's get this done with and we'll talk later," the brown-eyed man calmed his older friend, then proceeded to slowly lift up the back of House's light blue shirt, then gently pulled it over his head and discarded it on a nearby chair. "It's alright," he told House when he noticed the man becoming agitated again. Deciding to make quick work of this process, Wilson quickly doused some scrapes on House's lower back in an antiseptic and worked up from there, treating a few scattered cuts.

House could feel his friend's eyes burning into every scar his father had left. The one from being pushed through a screen door when he was only six that was positioned upon his right shoulder. The perfect circle of a cigarette burn implanted in the middle of his back at age fifteen. The bright white one put across his back with a horse whip when he was eleven. Countless other scars littered his muscular back. House knew Wilson was not only looking at his recent injuries, but his old ones as well.

House was right. Wilson pored over the older man's back, swallowing at every scar he saw there. He had no idea how they had gotten there, but there were so many of them. Trying to focus on cleaning up an abrasion on his patient's right rib, Wilson caught his eyes continually straying over to some of the more prominent scars on his friend's back, wondering again how he came to have so many of them. _"Was he really saying 'dad' earlier?"_ Wilson asked himself, hoping he wasn't right. An abuse case hidden under thirty-some years of other screwed-up aspects of House's life was not something he could handle on his own.

"Okay, House, you can put your shirt back on now," Wilson reassured his still-trembling, still-numb friend as he tossed him his button-down.

"Thanks," House mumbled, trying to make his stupid, shaking fingers button his shirt up, not wanting Wilson to see him like this any longer.

Quietly jumping in as he would do if House was drunk, or detoxing, or suffering from breakthrough pain, Wilson reached over and buttoned up House's shirt for him. "House, do you feel any pain other than your leg or the cuts on your head, neck, and back?" Wilson inquired of his friend, hoping to be almost done with this exam. House just shook his head and looked down until Wilson reached the top of his shirt, then looked up as he was instructed to do so.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Wilson asked, knowing that House knew what he had seen all over his back and connected it to his panic attack, wondering now what had set it off, as well as what had set off the panic attack that had caused him to strike Wilson earlier that day.

Again, House shook his head and edged off the exam table and onto his left leg, where he hop-dragged himself to his cane and put his jacket back on. "I'm tired. Take me home. I'll pick up my keys tomorrow," House mumbled. The diagnostician already felt violated enough for the day, and the panic attacks, nightmares, exam, and the strenuous events of pulling himself all over hell that morning were all catching up to him. Really, he just wanted to go home to his apartment to lay on his couch, pretend to watch his porn, and drink his whiskey.

"Fine, but you need to talk to someone about this," Wilson insisted while he opened the door for House. He didn't realize it was so late, as the clinic was already shut down. "Come on," the oncologist said as he and his friend stepped out of the building entirely into the frosty, February air.

**A/N:** Hey, this is actually being updated really fast! Let me know what you guys think, I hope you liked this chapter! I hope I didn't get too OOC with the characters here, but I feel like even though House is definitely guarded, he'd be more willing to make himself vulnerable in front of Wilson than in front of any other character.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **No reviews on the last chapter... okay guys... cool. :( Someone please review and tell me how I did on that last chapter and on this one, too!

Oh, and I just re-watched Last Resort after not seeing that episode in a while... it always reminds me how much of a man House really is, the way he tried to keep Thirteen, the clinic nurse, and the clinic patients alive, even though some of them were extremely obnoxious. Just a great episode all around... sorry, I had to say that.

**Disclaimer**: Thirteen-year-old girls don't own hit TV shows or great songs.

Alright, here we are with chapter seven of Scars!

The next morning, Dr. Gregory House moaned and rolled himself out of bed as his high-pitched, annoying alarm clock blared into his ear. Pulling his bad leg slowly, _slowly_ over the side of the bed, House pushed the offending noisemaker off his bedside table and began to reassess the previous night.

_ "Wilson knows," _House thought to himself, _"he knows, and now there's no going back. He can't forget, he won't forget, and it's all because YOU couldn't control yourself. It's all because YOU don't know how to let go of things that happened a lifetime ago, because YOU are such a damn baby you can't keep from having panic attack after panic attack after falling on some ice." _

_ "Are you really this damn stupid?" _Another voice bit at House's ears. _"You're able to show this much weakness now? You're lucky Wilson keeps you around, he didn't want to deal with you before. But now, with you whining about a childhood you think was worse than it was, he's really not going to want you. He's going to leave you, as he should, and you'll be alone. All alone," _John House's gravelly whisper travelled into House's head.

"No, stop! I haven't seen you in two years, I don't associate with you anymore, you're not even my real father!" House raised his voice and clawed at his ears.

_ "But you will never, ever be rid of me. You hear that, boy? Never. You will always remember the discipline I treated you to, you will always remember that you should be punished after acting like an idiot, and you will always remember how to be a good soldier. I'll forever be in the back of your mind, along with the ice baths, the beatings, the long nights outside. Remember me."_ And with that, John House's cold voice slipped away, leaving House on his bed with his head in his hands and his heart dropped down to his stomach.

[Line Break]

It was 8:32 AM when House finally found himself at work, a whole twenty-eight minutes before he was required to. Of course, he wasn't there to actually work, just to be early enough to screw with his team _and_ to avoid Wilson, who was always there at 8:35 on the dot. Quickly limping to the elevator, House stepped inside and pushed the button for his floor and leaned on the back elevator wall, sighing to himself and closing his eyes in preparation for the day. Soon enough, the door popped back open and the diagnostician left the elevator cab and pulled himself and his leg from hell into the refuge of his office. Fully planning on napping until his team arrived, House sat down in his chair and propped his legs up, but stopped when he saw a case file seated on his desk with a note attached.

"_You're going to take this case because I told you to. - Cuddy."_

Sighing, House flipped open the file and expected to find a middle age, loser patient with cancer, or sarcoidosis, or some other boring, first-thing-that-comes-to-mind diagnosis. Instead, he found the picture of a five-year-old caucasian male, presenting with blood in the urine. Still a boring presentation, but upon closer inspection of the grainy headshot given of the patient, House quickly noticed scarring around the boy's lips and automatically, his brain flipped to kidney failure and self-mutilation, unless there was something else going on behind the scenes in this boy's life. Without the self-mutilation factor, House would've never taken the case, but something about the fact that a five year old was scarred up this much on the face made him do it. House grabbed the case file, not bothering to read the rest of it, walked into the DDx room, and wrote the two symptoms he cared about on the board: Decreased kidney function and scarring near the lips.

A few minutes of sitting in his chair and playing with his cane later, Kutner walked into the room at precisely 8:47 AM, surprised to see his boss already at work.

"What are you doing here so early?" Kutner inquired of House, who rolled his eyes at his most childish fellow. "Because my annoying hooker wouldn't leave my apartment."

"Aw, House, are you looking to make a change in your life? See, I knew you cared about your job, this hospital, even your co-workers..." Kutner let out a boyish grin and trailed off as he noticed the words on the whiteboard. "Do we have a case?"

"No, remember, I'm listing the symptoms my hooker had after a night in my bed," House retorted quickly, now choosing to inspect the curve of his cane.

"What makes this one special, then? I mean, I assume all women leave your place with..." Kutner scanned the board quickly, "blood in the urine and marks where your teeth grazed too hard on soft skin?" House turned to glare at his fellow, who was smirking obnoxiously just as Thirteen and Foreman walked in. "We have a case?" Thirteen asked when she saw the board.

"No, you see..." House began to go into his spiel again when Kutner grabbed the file and read it off to the other doctors. Finally, at 9:00 AM exactly, Taub walked in, looking stressed and annoyed as ever.

"Well, it's great to finally have the whole family here! Tiny Taub," House watched to smirk at Taub's annoyance at the nickname, "trouble in paradise?" Taub glared back at House but didn't respond.

Finally, Foreman realized House had been there before him and Thirteen had shown up minutes earlier. "Why were you early today?"

House was about to go into his hooker story, ready to add more details because the original, dull story was beginning to bore the brilliant man when Kutner decided again to spare the others from the story he knew was made up. "So, what if we don't take into consideration the scarring around the lips? Then we just have simple kidney failure," Kutner proposed to the group.

"You can't just leave out a symptom because you don't want to see it. If the kid is self-mutilating, it indicates some type of mental illness that could be a factor in why his kidneys are failing," Taub answered Kutner, busying himself with his coffee.

"Or, Kutner's idea is right, and we should just ignore the marks around his lips. Just because he bites them doesn't mean he's purposely self-mutilating, it could just be a nervous habit or something he does when he's stressed, or something he did to himself as a baby," Thirteen responded to Taub.

"If he did it to himself as a baby, he should've stopped before he reached that point because it hurt. CIPA," House popped himself out of his chair and circled their second symptom, and then wrote in large letters below, "CIPA."

"No way a five-year-old has undiagnosed CIPA and is still alive. Besides, that doesn't account for the kidney failure that everyone seems to be ignoring," Foreman responded with an edge in his voice.

"Then our other option for the lip chewing is he does it when he's stressed and it relieves the stress, but if a five year old is stressed, there's problems going on that are far too big for a little kid to understand," House paused and the other four doctors looked at him expectantly, "Someone go examine the kid, see if he's hurt himself in any other ways and check for signs of abuse. Abuse would explain the kidney failure due to trauma and the reason as to why it looks like the kid's trying to bite his own face off. On the off chance that I'm wrong, Thirteen and Taub go check the home for environmental factors, see if there's anything the patient could swallow that his kidney's couldn't filter out. Go. Do," House finished as he wrote "abuse?" on the board and leaned back to stare.

[Line Break]

"House," Cuddy started as she ambled into her diagnostic head's office, "what's wrong with Cameron?"

"The skinny brunette?" House asked, opening one eye to acknowledge her presence before shutting it again.

"The patient, you idiot. Did you figure out what was wrong with him?"

"It's been two hours. The team is doing the standard admittance exam right now."

"Well, hurry up! I don't want to be responsible for a dead five-year-old!"

"This is an important patient... or rather a patient with important parents who give the hospital important funding, isn't it?" House asked, quickly figuring out Cuddy's distress over the little boy.

Cuddy, hating how House could read her so easily, let out a puff of air and glared down at the now-smirking diagnostician. "Fix him," she told House, then turned away on her heel and began walking for the door. House just cocked his head and watched her leave.

"And quit staring at my ass," Cuddy scolded, then continued her walk back to her office.

**A/N:** I wasn't really sure how I should have ended that chapter... a bit of a filler, but the patient is important. Sorry the update took so long, I've been crazy busy and it took me a lot of research to figure out exactly what I wanted to happen with the patient.

Speaking of updates, it's going to be a struggle for the next week and a half - I am leaving on vacation on Monday and will be gone until the next Monday, and that is a full week without my computer. Therefore, we will not have any updates next week. I will, however, try to update again once more before I leave so I give you guys a little something to chew on. Thanks for understanding.

Please, please review - they're great motivation to write and I love to read them!


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** As promised, I am trying to get this chapter cranked out quickly to update the story by the time I leave on vacation! I hope you guys like it!

**Disclaimer:** For, like, the eighth time, I do not own House and I do not own Scars.

Here we go, chapter eight!

"Alright Cameron, we're going to do an exam to make sure there's nothing wrong with you, okay?" Dr. Kutner told the child in a way that he hoped would placate the small, brunette boy.

"But, isn't that why I'm here? Something is wrong with me, so you're looking for what is wrong, not checking to make sure nothing's wrong?" the little boy inquired of Kutner. Looking down on him, Kutner smiled at the boy's intelligence. "I guess you are right, but I don't think we'll find anything too wrong right now. Can I ask you to step out?" Kutner asked the father, who was jabbing on his cell phone, checking his watch, and looking like he was ready to get out of there. Waiting for his dad to end his call, little Cameron looked up at Kutner and gave a "typical-dad" shrug and stuck his fingers back into his mouth, looking away. After a few "why's" and "he's-my-son's" later, the father left the room, irritatedly dialing another number on his phone.

"Dad always busy like that?" the Indian doctor asked the little boy as he took off his gown. The child just shrugged and nodded. Kutner noticed him biting his lip again and wondered if House was right, that maybe the father was a type of trigger for him. "How is everything at home, Cameron?" Kutner asked, trying to find an answer while not scaring the boy.

"Okay," he rasped out before adding on at his doctor's expectant look, "Dad is busy and he said Mom was on a trip somewhere and he doesn't know when she'll be back, so it's lonely."

Kutner quickly realized the boy's mother had either left or was dead. "It's okay, my parents died when I was six. I was alone for three years until a family adopted me," he told his story, "you home alone a lot?" The doctor wondered if the child ever got into anything if he was left alone as often as it seemed. Kutner began to examine the small boy, taking extra care around his lips and mouth and noting that the inside of his cheeks were chewed-up as well as his gums, lips, and skin around his mouth.

"Depends on how much work Dad has to do," Cameron said, looking down. He bit down on his tongue and quickly hit himself upside the head, then paused and did it again. Kutner grabbed his hands and held him there, realizing how incredibly strong he was for a five-year-old. The boy squirmed and kicked out and tried to remove himself from Kutner's grip until he calmed down a few minutes later. Kutner worked his way through the exam, writing down notes detailing small bruises on the boy's face, teeth marks on his arms, hands, and fingers, and bruises on his shins. "Okay, that's all we have to do. Anything else you can tell me is wrong?" Kutner asked, trying again to pry into the little boy's life.

"No, I'm fine," he answered and started scratching viciously at his thigh. Kutner jumped in and grabbed the boy's hand and warned him that he was going to scratch through his skin, figuring he was trying to hurt himself. "Hey, Cameron, quit trying to hurt yourself. We're going to figure this out, okay? Until then, you can't try and get hurt," Kutner told him.

"I'm not trying, it itches!" the boy asserted.

[Line Break]

"So the kid's a little itchy. Symptomatic of a bug bite. Thanks for playing, Kutner," House rolled his eyes.

"Also another sign of kidney failure, along with his labored breathing and swelling ankles, which is also on his chart," Thirteen pointed out.

"Thanks, lesbia- oops, I'm sorry, did I let that slip?- I am a nephrologist, I know what the hell kidney failure looks like. What else did you find wrong with the patient?" House asked, flipping and spinning his cane.

"Small bite marks - looked like his own - littering his arms, hands, and stubbornly red fingers. Definitely chewed up the inside of his mouth and surrounding area. Some bruises on his shins, but I couldn't decide if they were self-inflicted or just come from playing too hard. Also, after I tried to talk more in-depth about his Dad, he began hitting himself on the side of his head and there was bruising there upon further inspection, indicating that's a habit," Kutner responded. He was worried about the child.

House erased "scarring around lips" and replaced it with "self-mutilation" on the board and added "swollen ankles" and "slightly labored breathing." The team popped off a few reasons for the self-mutilating behavior like autism, stress, and any one of a dozen developmental disabilities, until Kutner pointed out that the child seemed overly attentive and intelligent. Still, House recorded the possibilities on the board and was asking for reasons for the kidney failure when Foreman spoke up, "House, I think you have a visitor."

House sighed to himself, knowing who it was immediately. "When I get back, I want five new possibilities for what's making this kid sick," he instructed.

"What do you want, Wilson?" House snarled as soon as he was out of his team's earshot.

"House, you know we have to talk about this, or you have to talk about this. With someone. And not a hooker, an actual person that you're close to or a therapist," Wilson reasoned with his friend.

"Nope, don't feel like it," House responded like a child while the two men walked down the hall, seemingly to nowhere.

"House!" Wilson said firmly, trying to grab the diagnostician's attention. It worked. "What... what did your father do to you?"

"He touched me in the naughty place," the older doctor replied sarcastically, averting his eyes and trying, to no avail, to walk faster than his friend with two working legs.

Immediately concerned, Wilson asked, "did he? House... come on. Talk to someone about this."

"Jesus Christ, Wilson. I'm kidding. Find a sense of humor and a set of balls, then come discuss this with me. Meanwhile, I have a five-year-old with no kidneys who's trying to rip himself apart. Go away," House told the oncologist and then proceeded to limp off into the elevator. Getting quickly inside, House breathed a sigh of relief. _"Survived the first line of questions," _House thought to himself.

[Line Break]

"Huntington's disease?"

"Autistic kid, Dad doesn't know why he hurts himself, hits him to hopefully make him stop?"

"Well, that escalated quickly, Taub," House quipped at his duckling who'd made the most recent suggestion. "And he's five, and only just now showing muscle weakness and lack of bodily control, _and_ Huntington's this advanced would leave him completely incoherent. You would know, right, Thirteen?" House was overly irritable again this afternoon. He rubbed at his leg and at the back of his head before biting again at his team, "Ideas! Go! This kid's going to die of kidney failure within a few days or weeks if nobody figures this out. What are we missing?"

Suddenly, everyone's pagers went off and the team went rushing towards the child's room, where a usually well-mannered Cameron was screaming obscenities at his father and gouging out his own eyes when he came close. The small, tan boy looked around with wild eyes at the doctors who had just come rushing into his room and sunk down farther into his bed before moaning, jamming a finger into his mouth, and screaming again. Kutner responded quickly once more and moved the boys hands away from his mouth while Foreman injected him with a sedative.

"Damn it, the kid wet the bed," Taub grumbled when he sat on the edge of the bed to bandage up his hands, hopefully to prevent further self-mutilation.

"It's alright, the kid obviously had some type of panic attack around his Dad, got scared, and wet himself. Don't blame him," Kutner scolded the whining doctor. However, when Foreman pulled back the boy's covers, took the gown off his limp body, and pulled off his underwear, there appeared to be sand-like crystals all over his lower extremities and the bed.

[Line Break]

"So, he got freaked out when Daddy got too close. Why now, not before?" House asked his team. He stared at the board, _something_ just wasn't working here.

"Can't we talk about that later and stick to his physical health, like why he's having some type of kidney stone, for now?" Thirteen objected to House's opening line.

House was about to respond when Foreman piped up again with a smirk, "my, House, aren't you popular today. Looks like someone else is here to see you."

Sighing and leaving his team with the instruction to keep the father away from the child until further notice, or when abuse was officially ruled out, House limped out of the DDx room, feeling the day's strain on him. "Yes, Cuddles?"

Cuddy looked her most famous and fund-reaping doctor up and down and sighed. He seemed so strong, so unbreakable, like nothing had ever hurt him once. Then, she looked again and realized the creases on his forehead, the gray tinged hair, the way the years had damaged his still-impossibly-handsome face and understood that she should've been looking twice at him years ago. "Wilson told me." House's snicker dropped from his face and he hobbled away.

**A/N:** Leaving y'all on a cliffhanger. Review and tell me what you think! ;) And just to officially announce, I guess, I do have another story (or rather, series of one-shots) in the works right now, but will not be posting anything until the completion of Scars, which still has a good bit to go. :) I'm super excited for you guys to see that soon!

See you all next week, I will hopefully be updating right when I get home from vacation!


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** I don't own House and I don't own Scars. As if you thought anything different.

Wilson rubbed his face, then the back of his neck, and tried to re-focus on his paperwork. The problem was, he just couldn't do it. He felt guilty, if only a little, for telling Cuddy about House's father. However, he knew House would never voluntarily tell anyone and the oncologist just _didn't know _how to help his friend. Cuddy was the type to understand this stuff, right? But really, if Wilson could just get House to tell him about it... it would be okay, wouldn't it?

Nearly a half an hour later, Wilson was still sitting in the same position, except now he wasn't even trying to concentrate on his most recent budget report - which Cuddy was on his ass for - but he didn't even care. It was hard to give a damn about budget reports when he had just shared his best friend's probably deepest, darkest secret with their boss, but still he had done it. Silently, Wilson shoved his papers back into his briefcase and put his face in his hands, waiting for the assault he was sure House would inflict upon him when he stormed into his office any minute now. But really, what else could he have done?

An hour later, Wilson was fidgeting in his seat, repositioning himself every few seconds, and playing with the knickknacks on his desk. Really, he looked like a child who knew he'd misbehaved and was waiting to be reprimanded by his teacher. Why wasn't House in his office, screaming at him? Why wasn't he punching Wilson out, like he knew he probably deserved? Why wasn't he constructing a master plan to get the worst type of revenge? Wilson kicked himself and realized that none of that sounded like House. No, it sounded like how House wanted people to react to hurting him, but it wasn't really House. Not really. God damn it. Why wasn't he getting yelled at yet?

Meanwhile, the diagnostician in question had been in the clinic for two hours. Two hours. Not sleeping, not hiding out, actually treating patients in the clinic. For two hours. His leg ached and his head pounded with all the force of an orchestra playing away in his head, but still he moved on to patient after patient, treating unnecessary visits for the flu and prescribing STD meds for yet another case of chlamydia. He hated it, hated every second, but it was his only escape from his own thoughts. Treating idiotic clinic patients was mindless, requiring no thought process whatsoever. Thinking over why Wilson told Cuddy and how Cuddy would try to butt into his life, thinking about word spreading and Cameron trying to fix him and Kutner give his sympathetic looks, thinking about losing all respect from anyone in the hospital... not so mindless. His throat caught and he swallowed hard just thinking about what his father would do if everyone had found out when he was young. Shaking his head, House moved onto the next patient when his pager went off.

"Kid's kidneys are gone. House, where the hell are you? Get your ass back here, before I have Cuddy send out a search party." - Foreman.

"House, come on, Cameron is scared and is already going to need a kidney transplant, as long as he doesn't die before we can get him on a transplant list, not to mention that he's still biting at himself. Where are you?" - Thirteen.

"I don't care what problems you're having or why you ran away. Get back here before we're responsible for a dead five-year-old." - Taub.

"You've gotta get back here - we don't know what's wrong with Cameron. He's scared, his Dad is pissed, and he's continuing to decline." - Kutner.

House smiled softly, fleetingly to himself at just how in character his ducklings were, even in just a few lines of text. Heaving silently, the blue-eyed diagnostician left his most obnoxious clinic patient with a _stubbed toe_ - yes, a _stubbed toe_ - to fend for himself and headed back towards his office.

"Yes, kiddies?" House popped off as soon as he limped back into the DDx room. The oldest doctor listened for a while as his fellows explained the urgency and extent of the child's condition. 

"House, it's obviously not the kid's father if he's clearly doing the damage to himself," Foreman insisted.

[Line Break]

_ "You did this to yourself, got it? You tripped and fell into that bookcase -" Young Gregory House's father turned and pointed to a shelf with a particularly sharp edge - "and hit your eye. Understood, boy?" Six-year-old Gregory nodded immediately and touched his eye. It was swelling and throbbing and would probably be black soon. When his father looked away, he poked and prodded all his sore areas - ribs would be bruised but not broken, some blood coming from a cut on the back of his head, and his right shoulder hurt like hell - maybe dislocated? He'd pop it back in later - and concluded he was okay enough. He'd hide the cut on his head with his hoodie that featured an oversized hood that stuck up, he'd say he threw his arm out playing baseball, and he'd lie his way through his black eye. It'd be okay. He sniffled and went back outside for the night like a good boy._

_ The next day, the same, broken little boy walked into his first-grade classroom with his hood high and his head low, hoping not to be noticed. Unfortunately, Ms. Sanders had taken quite a liking to the little boy prior to this incident and noticed his demeanor and injury right away. "Oh, Greg, what's wrong with your eye?" she asked in her sweet, just-out-of-college-teacher voice as she looked down on the unnaturally small child._

_ "I tripped into a bookcase when I was playing tag with my Daddy, ma'am," Gregory added to his story, hoping it would make it more believable to his young teacher._

_ "Oh, that's not good!" Ms. Sanders sing-songed to the boy, then knelt down to his level and touched his eye. He flinched away from her and she looked concerned. "Greg, are you sure that's what happened?" _

_ Gregory could have just died right then and there. His only-been-developing-for-six-years instincts just weren't sharp enough yet to quickly respond without giving himself away. He hesitated for a minute and the tears were about to pour when Ms. Sanders realized how scared he seemed. "It's okay kiddo, I'm sure you just did it to yourself on accident. No big deal, it'll be all better in a few days!" she tried to reassure him. He looked at her gratefully then stiffly made his way to the plastic chair at his seat at the table. _

[Line Break]

"House? House!" Foreman's deep voice brought him back to reality and he shook his head to clear his thoughts. Quickly, House limped off and out the door, determined to save this child from the same childhood he endured. Once he made it to the hospital room, he kicked the father out with the excuse that they had to perform another test on the boy and didn't want having another person in the room to stress him out. "Whatever," the father had started, "I have a meeting. Don't bother the doctors, kid." The boy just nodded and bit his lip.

"Don't do that," House flicked his lip and the boy looked almost betrayed. "Okay, Cooper-"

"-my name is Cameron."

"Okay. Because it matters. Does your dad hurt you? You know, ever hit you, make you bleed, anything else?" House pried into the boy, trying to think of how he would have liked to have been asked this question when he was about this age. Of course, he didn't want to be asked the question at all, but how could he do it in such a way to not make the boy - Cameron, apparently - lock up?

The boy gnawed his lip again - earning him another flick from House - and shook his head. "No, sir," he whispered. House saw him try to pinch himself with his bandaged hands and let the self-mutilation go for the time being.

"Kid, here's the deal. You have to tell me if he does hurt you. Come on, anything? Slaps, whacks upside the head at any given time, kick you, cut you?" House asked, becoming agitated more and more. Cameron shook his head rapidly and backed away, afraid of the doctor being upset with him. He knew that his father wouldn't be happy with him if he bothered an important person. His heart monitors went off and House shrunk back, irritated at himself for giving the kid a panic attack. Soon after, his fellows came rushing in as all their pagers had gone off due to the monitors.

"Kutner, you're in charge. Sorry Foreman - had to pick a different master race this time. Get some information out of the kid. You other three, out," House instructed, glaring at his ducklings the whole time. When they loitered, House sharply yelled, "Out!" They complied quickly. Kutner was working on calming the boy down, obviously understanding what had happened. Unbeknownst to the older doctor, he had also paged Wilson to check on House because he was a little too wound up as well. Within moments, Wilson was down at the child's room, grateful to have an excuse to see his friend. "House?" he asked, seeing his friend standing behind the door as he watched Kutner attempting to soothe the child, but making slow progress.

House caught Wilson out of the corner of his eye as he came close to the room and jerked his head sharply towards him. "What do you want?" he spat out.

"House, come on. You have to come talk to me. Please," the oncologist pleaded, and saw Kutner trying to reassure who he assumed was House's patient. "House?"

"Nope, I think I'm gonna stay right here, actually," the diagnostician smarted as if he were a moody teenager. Cameron, sensing the tension in the room, started becoming more agitated again.

"House, for God's sake, at least argue with me in a setting where you're not going to stress to death a sick kid. He doesn't need it and neither do you."

The blue-eyed diagnostician glared at the other three occupants of the room and staggered out. Damn, his leg hurt. Stopping just as he re-entered the main hallway of this floor, House turned to Wilson. "Here to apologize for telling Mommy about my Daddy Issues?"

Wilson's face burned in shame, but what other choice did he have? "You've got to talk to someone about this, House! You'd be happier. Neither of us are judging you for it... it's nothing to be ashamed of. Why are you?"

_ "Because it is something to be ashamed of! Because if I let it slip, I'm getting an ice bath and that god damned horse whip reserved for only special punishments. Because I'll be in trouble. For fuck sakes, it is something to be ashamed of." House screamed at Wilson in his head._

"I'm not, you asshole. I'm not ashamed of it, I'm _over it!_" House retorted.

"Oh, you clearly have no issues to work through! Let's not mind the sheen of sweat on your face and the tremble in your words as you talk about it, not mind the flashbacks you had when I had to pull your drunken ass into my car and to the hospital, and not even mind your panic attack in the clinic when I pulled up your shirt!" Wilson argued back, not caring about the scene he was sure to be making.

House sighed and rubbed his face. "I'm over it!" He reiterated, weaker this time. "I'm just trying to help the kid I _know_ is dealing with the same bullshit!"

In that moment, both House and Wilson realized that House _did_ have a heart, even if he didn't want to admit it. "House, let your team handle it. Hell, let Kutner handle it for now. Report the suspected abuse to social services and sit back. He's not ready to connect yet with even anyone who's open about it, much less you. Kutner's great with him. Just look-" Wilson gestured towards the glass window, where he could see the Indian doctor was getting through to Cameron- "Don't put yourself into overdrive," the brown-eyed man concluded.

"I'm not just going to sit back while a five-year-old's kidneys fail and you idiots try to 'connect' with him!" House argued back sarcastically. God damn it, he wouldn't say it, but he wanted the boy to end up alright.

"House, if you don't call social services then stop working right now, I will page Cuddy and we can all discuss your Daddy issues, she can decide you're not being objective and then take over the case herself, and you won't have solved the case," Wilson threatened, knowing his friend would have to give in.

"Whatever," the older man responded, then paged Thirteen to report suspected abuse. He turned away, popped a Vicodin, then left back towards his office to think.

**A/N:** I honestly did not want to stop here... I've been writing for four days and had the toughest time getting into a groove, and I didn't want to stretch this chapter too far. Anyway, I hope I didn't get too OOC with House trying to talk to the patient here... I love the idea of them forming at least a mutual understanding and respect, but we're not there yet. Meanwhile, I love Kutner around child patients, so I'm definitely using that for this story while House is trying to work through his own issues and help the boy. And God, please don't hate this story just for how I'm making Cameron's illness run - I'm trying so hard to make it realistic, but it's a lot of research and not many symptoms to present for the illness I picked out for the story. I'm trying!

Oh, and do you guys think I should include the scene with Kutner trying to ask the kid if his Dad abuses him in the next chapter, or should I bring up the findings quickly in a DDx? I know I use a lot of dialogue, that's just how I write.

Anywhooo, it's currently July 16, 10:25 PM here... just saying, my fourteenth birthday is in an hour and thirty-five minutes when July 17 commences (which is probably when this will be read)... reviews, especially long ones, make great birthday presents ;)

Thanks!


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** Read the other nine chapters to find out.

Dragging the white board through the DDx room and into his office, House let out a breath and sat down in his chair. He put up his feet and crossed them one over another and leaned back then, staring straight at the board that contained every symptom they had seen in the boy. What the hell... what the hell caused self-mutilation, kidney failure, sand-like kidney stones, and sore joints in a five-year-old? The diagnostician bit his lip and re-ran over every possibility, but settled again on the same one he had thought was right all along. "It's got to be the Dad. It's always the Dad," he mumbled to himself and narrowed his eyes on the word 'abuse?' that sat on the board. "Always," he reiterated. He took his eyes off the board for just a second and saw Kutner re-enter the DDx room. House pushed himself off the chair, adjusted his weight to his cane, and opened the door to where his team sat. "What'd you find?" he simply asked.

"He insists he's not being abused, and I believe him. Why are you so dead-set that it's his father that caused this?" his Indian doctor replied.

"What if he has just a case of autism and self-mutilated enough that he caused kidney damage? We've seen him hit himself, try to bite his fingers off, and chew his lips... what would stop him from ramming himself into things when he's not under supervision at home? He could've easily caused the kidney damage to himself, then not have been able to filter any drugs the ER gave him as a standard patient before sending him onto us," Foreman volunteered. He was getting sick of this case, and even sicker of House sticking with the same idea the whole case. That wasn't like House and everyone knew it, but nobody knew why he was acting so out of character.

"Get him on dialysis and get him on the transplant list," House decided after thinking for a moment, "and someone figure out what Daddy Dearest is doing to him. Now."

"House! Cameron doesn't have time for you to analyze his home life! The way his kidney's are deteriorating, he's gone in less than a week. Probably less than a few days. He's scared that he's dying and we can't tell him that he is. Why are you so stuck on this?" Thirteen cried out at House. He could tell she was upset, could tell down to the way her voice cracked and went up a few pitches and in the way her eyes lit with fire. _"Yeah, House, why are you so stuck on this?"_ he mocked at himself in his head. _"Nope, nobody can see it's because the kid is abused at home and because I can't let that go. I know all too well how he feels, even though I feel nothing now."_ It was almost 8 PM - House sent his ducklings home and told them to come back in the morning with less-shitty ideas.

[Line Break]

"House?" Cuddy quietly opened the door to his office and shut it smoothly behind her. The lights were out and House was behind his desk, feet up by his computer monitor - showing a rather vulgar image at the moment - and crossed over each other, his mouth hanging open and him snoring lightly, so silently you'd have to be close enough to kiss to hear it. Cuddy smiled softly to herself as she looked down on her sleeping doctor, and looked at the time on his computer screen - that she had minimized - to see that it was past 10:00. Sighing, she shook his shoulder lightly and whispered, "House?"

He jolted awake at her first touch and whipped his head around the room to see who the intruder was when his eyes came to rest upon her. He could see her figure illuminated by his computer screen. _"Whoops, didn't mean to leave that on..."_ he laughed to himself when he saw the window had been minimized. When his breathing calmed down and his heart slowed, he turned to look at her again. "Whatcha need, Cuddles?" he said with a smirk.

"How's your patient?" she asked, looking at him with concern.

"Fantastic," he responded quickly, just to irritate her.

"He is not 'fantastic,' and if this child dies I'm going to lose a huge donor," his boss nagged.

"Do you mean if this child dies now, or dies at an old age like we all dream of? Technically, he's going to die sometime, we all do-" he was cut off by Cuddy again.

"House, I'm being serious. I know this is a rough time for you right now-"

"Oh, cut the crap. You wouldn't have given a damn about 'what I was going through' if Wilson hadn't told you, because you wouldn't have known. I was over this years ago, so don't think you finding out changes anything," House said finally.

"You can't let him die just because you're stubborn and upset with Wilson and I," Cuddy stated, then added on, more softly, "you can't let him die because you want to think he's having the same childhood as you did."

House thought about that for a moment... "I know," he finally answered with a downcast look. "But I also know there's more going on behind the scenes here. Whether or not it is relevant to his illness, I know it's happening," the blue-eyed man finished.

"You're seeing abuse because you want to see abuse. Not because it's there. You're responding like- like a human being. You want to help him, but he doesn't need any more help than for you to diagnose him. That's all the more help you are capable of giving him," Cuddy rambled, trying to put her thoughts into words but struggling to do so. "All you can do is save his life, but I don't know if you're even thinking straight enough to do that," she finally ended with. House responded by giving her the most empty look she'd ever seen from his blue eyes. It was like she'd just taken everything away from him.

He swallowed and absorbed the fact that he'd failed at yet another aspect of his life and realized his father had been right all along: He'd always be a failure.

House stumbled up out of his seat and grabbed his cane. "I can- I can solve this. I can solve this without help from any of you," he muttered. "I can and I will solve this," he urged, louder this time.

Cuddy looked at her most prized doctor with sympathy as he fought was she just said. She knew it was harsh, but she also knew that Cameron needed someone who was being objective. "House. Your team doesn't have to know why I'm handing the case over to another department. You don't have to tell them it's because the memories of your father have been resurfacing - I'll just say that you pissed off Cameron's dad and he wants you off his son's case," she tried to reason with House.

"Cuddy, if I haven't thought of what's wrong yet, nobody is going to. Even when I'm distracted, which I'm NOT now, I'm still statistically the best diagnostician in the world. I figured out that the hot teenage supermodel was really not a girl even though I was blinded by just how stunning she was, I figured out that our Asian Invasion patient's parents attempted to kill her even though I was hundreds of miles away and stuck at my father's funeral, and I figured out what was going on with the girl who had a building fall on her head with you hounding me about hiring a team. If I can't solve it, who can?" House rambled, trying to defend the only attribute he liked about himself. He started walking towards the door and gave Cuddy a final look, as if daring her to respond, then limped out of his office and into Wilson's.

The oncologist was more surprised than anyone else when House came storming into his office at 10:30 PM. Wilson had been just about to pack his things up and head home for the night to think about the current situation with House. He knew he had screwed up in telling Cuddy, but he also would have screwed up if he hadn't told Cuddy. He didn't know how to handle hearing House had been abused by his father... either way, it had explained a lot. It shined a little light on why House was so bitter and why he had resisted going to his father's funeral so much. However, Wilson shook his head and focused in on what was happening now. "House?"

House just sat down on Wilson's couch and put his head in his hands. What was wrong with this patient, and what was wrong with him? But they weren't connected... they couldn't be. His Dad was gone, why did he care about the abuse? He didn't. He had survived the beatings, the ice baths, the cold winter nights, everything. He shouldn't care anymore. He was too old. He didn't care. But he could care about the kid as long as he didn't say anything. Right?

"What?" House barked at Wilson.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot I angrily barged into your office," Wilson retorted and rolled his eyes at his childish best friend.

"Wilson. Shut up," House eyed his friend, daring him to berate him farther.

Wilson sighed and looked sympathetically over at House. Taking a deep breath and bracing himself for the storm, he asked simply, "how are you?"

"Fine." Nothing else.

"House, you're going to have to tell me something sometime. I didn't ask for details. I just asked how you were."

"Let me reiterate that for you. I. Am. Fine."

"House." That stern voice only Wilson could do.

"Fine."

"House." Again. Good lord, it sounded better than being scolded by a 1960s mother.

The diagnostician finally looked over at Wilson. "I'm dealing," he said this time.

"How are you dealing?"

"By forgetting it again."

"You can't just push it away."

"But I can."

Wilson was getting frustrated. How hard could it be just to tell your best friend, the guy who'd picked your sloppy self up from bars, cleaned up your vomit during breakthrough pain, and watched you self-destruct time after time how you were? Wilson took a deep breath and looked at House, who had his head down and thumping on his cane. "Stop that," Wilson instructed House, "Tell me something. Anything."

"Cuddy was almost falling out of her top today."

"House, tell me something serious. Something that _matters_. Not your deflections. Why- if you- if you would just tell me things, you wouldn't be so damn bottled up and guarded all the time. If you would tell anyone things, you'd-you wouldn't be so... so broken, like you always have been. All of your emotional scars that you say you don't have would heal. Why wouldn't you take that chance? Wilson stuttered.

"Because our scars remind us that the past is real!" House started angrily, "because nothing is ever going to change me, or my father, or my childhood!" House stood up and took a deep breath, expanding his lungs to full capacity. "What do you want me to tell you? Do you want to hear about every time he'd yank off my shirt, just like you did in the clinic-" Wilson grimaced at his own prior actions- "and put out his cigarette on my skin? Do you want to hear about all the ice baths after getting his belt on my back? About being sent, shivering and wet after one of those god forsaken ice baths, outside in December? Is that really what you want to hear? Some sadistic bitch you are," House finished, overwhelmed by how much he just told Wilson.

Wilson, unbeknownst to the unobservant House during his screaming fit, cringed at every piece of abuse his best friend has said was inflicted upon him. Upon further thought later, Wilson cringed at every piece of abuse he knew House hadn't told him about. The ones that were worse than what House had said. Suddenly, Wilson became extremely nauseous at the thought of doing such horrible things to such a small, vulnerable person. He stood up quickly and put his head in his hands. "House, how come you never told me any of this?"

"Because this is how you react! I get it! It's disgusting for happening, I'm disgusting for letting it happen to me. I could have stopped it, I should've stopped it, I could have stopped it... I could have been a better child, not angered my father... just done what he had asked. But I was okay, I was fine until this came back up... but damn it it's disgusting and I let it happen and it shouldn't have but it did and I just don't know how this happened," House mumbled to himself, but loud enough for Wilson to hear. "I'm sorry," was all he could say.

**A/N: **Ugh. Long time, no update... like, over two weeks. I was at cross country camp from the 20th-23rd, then came home from a few days to re-pack, do laundry, catch up on life, etc. before I left _again_ for another camp on the 27th-31st. Basically, no time to write, as well as no laptop, computer, wi-fi, etc. :(

Not to mention, things have been really stressful just in daily life and at home what with having to put time aside every day to practice driving and having to help my Dad fix up the house we rent out to other people... our last tenants caused a ton of damage to the house (resulting in a huge blow-up, especially between my parents, at home and me spending ample time taking care of my younger siblings while helping clean up the house. In addition, student council, weightlifting, helping family, and trying to have a social life are kicking my butt. Then, school starts next Wednesday, August 13, which is horribly early and makes me so sad and takes so much time for me to keep up with my advanced classes.

But now I'm back! I have another cross country camp this week Mon.-Fri. but I commute to and from the camp (it's a really pathetic camp at our school) so I am finally home for good and can write more. Thank goodness... I finally have the rest of the story mapped out.

I'm sorry this was such a long A/N. I really like talking to you guys, even if it's kind of one-sided.

Anyways, make me really happy, review... and hopefully there will be another update within the week! And feel free to answer my notes in a review ;)

Thank you all so much!


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer**: I don't own House and I don't own Scars.

"Where's House?" Kutner asked the obvious question as the clock in the DDx room approached 11 AM. This was beyond late for work - even for House. They had a dying patient and his attending was sleeping in?

"Not here," Taub replied with annoyance. Sometimes, Kutner just talked for the sake of talking. Honestly, whatever House was doing was probably the right thing to do. Even when the older diagnostician should be wrong, he ended up right. It was better to just accept that fact and let the chaos and craziness play out on its own.

"This isn't right. Why should House be able to sleep in and pop pills and enjoy his own, twisted version of bliss when we have a dying child? A dying child, who even with dialysis, is going to be done for in less than 48 hours and we can't even put him on a transplant list because we don't know what's wrong with him? I can believe a lot of the things House does, but this I can't. How do you just leave a child?" Kutner ranted angrily, before getting up and stalking out of the room. "I'm going to talk to Cameron. We have to be missing something."

[Line Break]

"Will you tell me anything?" Wilson asked House, who was sitting on his couch at the moment, dressed for work but just refusing to go in.

"Actually, no," House responded, and took another drink of his coffee. At this point, he was more pissed that he couldn't figure out what was wrong with his patient. Self-mutilation, kidney failure, sore joints, refusal to eat, terrified of his Dad, but maybe abuse wasn't the answer... What was missing?

Wilson was more frustrated with the fact that his best friend wasn't telling him anything about his childhood. The oncologist took a deep breath and told himself, _"House will tell you things, bits and pieces at a time, if you give him a chance. Just let him open up. Just don't get upset and angry. You can't lose your cool around him." _Then he spoke aloud, "Just know I'm here if you want to tell me anything," and he excused himself to the restroom.

Once Wilson was into the bathroom and had shut the door, he pulled out his cell phone and was greeted with the sight of seven new text messages, thirteen missed calls, and eight voicemails. He groaned and called Cuddy. Not two rings later, she picked up the phone. "Wilson! Where on earth are you?" she screeched into his ear.

"I'm at House's apartment with him. We had a bit of a breakdown last night and he needs the morning to process. I'm sorry, I should've called you earlier. I did have my secretary reschedule my appointments for later this afternoon," Wilson explained to his boss.

"What kind of a breakdown? His leg? How bad is he hurting?" Cuddy's voice immediately softened. She couldn't help it; she cared about the most broken man she'd ever met.

"No, Cuddy, not his leg today," the brown-eyed oncologist sighed before continuing, "He came into my office last night and I got him all riled up - you know, I wanted to know things about his childhood - and he ended up screaming some very vague confessions at me, then telling me he was disgusting for not stopping the abuse himself as a little kid, and apologizing for gracing me with his horrendous presence. Now, I'm at his apartment and he refuses to really look at me... again, I think he just wants to understand what happened," Wilson finally finished. Cuddy gave them both the next couple of hours off and told Wilson if both of their asses weren't into PPTH by 1:30, there would be a problem. Wilson agreed and hung up the phone, exiting the bathroom.

House had sunk farther back into Wilson's couch, not really listening to what he said and vaguely acknowledging that there was one less person in the room with him. When he heard the door opening from the restroom, House thought to himself, _"Just tell him one thing. One really, really small thing. Not much. You can tell him one thing, anything. Get this off your mind and then focus on the patient. His clock is ticking." _Then, Wilson walked out of the bathroom and peered over the couch at House, who appeared to be in deep thought. Really, the younger doctor did feel bad for his friend. Now, knowing how cold House's father had seemed, he could only imagine the degree of abuse inflicted upon a young Gregory House. He shuddered at the thought and asked, "House?"

[Line Break]

"Hey, Cam, how are you feeling today?" Kutner greeted the young child with feigned happiness. He knew he would die soon if they couldn't figure out what was wrong. The Indian doctor's fake smile dropped some as he saw Cameron grab his lips and pinch them, then bite at his fingers. He gently reached for the boy's fingers and pulled them away from his mouth, then held his hand in his, knowing this could very well be some of Cameron's last physical human contact. "Why do you hurt yourself, Cameron?" Kutner asked gently.

"It feels like the right thing to do. Like, it hurts, but I can't help it," he boy answered with a downcast look. Kutner gave the child a look of pity and asked him if there was anything else, anything he wasn't telling the doctors. Cameron shook his head again and looked up through his now-shaggy hair. The little boy had lost far too much weight since being admitted to the hospital - he'd been eating less and less the sicker he got. Ribs poked through the pediatric-printed gown and sharp elbows jutted out from too-long sleeves that draped over Cameron's arms. He started to shake, ever so slightly, and big crocodile tears slid down his face. "Am I going to die? I'm going to die, aren't I? And where's my Dad?" he mumbled to Kutner.

Not sure how to answer, Kutner licked his lips and scratched the back of his head. His young patient just looked up at him expectantly, but as if he already knew the answers to his questions. "We're gonna get you better, okay Cam? If I trust anyone to figure out what's wrong with you, it's my boss. Okay?"

"Okay, I guess," Cameron answered and pierced his lip with his teeth, then turned over and shut his eyes with tears still squeezing their way out. Moments later, Thirteen entered the room and saw Kutner hanging over the bedside of the fitfully sleeping patient. "How is he today?" she asked.

"Not trusting when I say House can figure out what's wrong, but still fighting pretty hard," he responded dryly.

"Why are you so attached to this little boy? Kids die all the time, and sure, it's sad, but it's a fact and we can't mourn the loss of every one of them," the female doctor tried to reason without sounding cold. She wanted the child to be okay, but if he wasn't, life would go on.

"He's a nice kid," the other doctor answered plainly, then added after some thinking, "I think House is right about him being abused, I just don't think it's connected."

"What makes you think that?" Thirteen asked, concerned although she had had her suspicions. Social services had kept Cameron's angry father away from his son without giving the child the knowledge as to why that was the case, he just thought his dad had been at meetings and working, leaving him alone with his doctors. Obviously, he had expected him to still be gone while he was in the hospital.

"Just a weird feeling. I just feel like I need to protect him because no one else is, and House doesn't to seem to care all that much."

"We'll figure it out. Today. Soon. He's not going to die, Kutner, he's not ready yet," Thirteen asserted.

[Line Break]

"Wilson," House spoke confidently. He turned quickly to look at his best friend, who was looking at him intently. "If I tell you something, do you promise not to ask any questions?" House had his begging, please-just-help-me look in his bright blue eyes.

The oncologist thought for a moment. If House left something open-ended, he'd want to ask what else there was he wasn't being told but would run the risk of House never opening up again. This was his one shot to not screw it up. "Okay," he agreed.

House turned back towards the black TV and took a minute to compose himself. _"Nothing's going to happen just because you tell Wilson. The world is not going to suck anymore today than it did yesterday. One thing, just pick anything to tell him,"_ he mentally instructed himself. Knowing he owed it to himself and Wilson to do this, the diagnostician sighed and looked ahead as Wilson wandered around and sat on a chair silently. House gathered his thoughts and decided on one thing to talk about. "All throughout my childhood, and adolescence, until I finally moved out after my senior year of high school, I'd get these ice baths for just about every offense," House trailed off to organize his thoughts while Wilson looked down. He couldn't imagine having his own father give him an ice bath, and he didn't even know the specifics of House's father's idea of a punishment. "They were miserable, if I could pick one word to describe them."

"I don't know how you want me to talk about this, Wilson."

Not sure if he should answer or not, Wilson responded quietly with, "Just do your best. I couldn't even fathom-"

House's head snapped up when Wilson responded. "Are you kidding me?" he raised his voice.

"What?" Wilson answered, trying to stay calm in order to avoid upsetting House.

"For the past week, it's been, 'House, talk to someone about this! House, I'm going to tell Cuddy so we can get you help! It will help to talk!' and now you're having a hard time responding to me because it's sounds bad? Now you're giving me room to go about this how I want? You have no idea what happened between me and that god forsaken man for eighteen years. You never will know. The only reason you're responding in this way is because you want to make it look like you understand what the hell I went through!"

"House-" 

"No, don't. Don't try to make it sound like you feel bad about pushing me to tell you all about my Daddy issues. You don't feel guilty at all. You just wanted to see me miserable-" House took a gasp of air and sucked himself back into a flashback of his father- "you're not doing this for me, it's all for you!"

"House, I'm telling you-"

"You're just another one of those sadistic bastards that says that what you're doing hurts you more than me, but you're just saying that because you like hearing about how terrible of a childhood I had." House had dropped his voice at this point. He stood up and grabbed his cane, then began pacing back and forth like a caged lion.

"I'm not asking you to talk because I want to hear how you suffered. I just think it's good to talk about things sometimes, House," Wilson answered gently but irritatedly.

"Hard to talk when you act like you're going to puke whenever I bring it up," House answered bitterly.

"I'm sorry, it's just hard to swallow hearing that your best friend was abused as a child!" Wilson stood up and raised his voice.

Hearing this, House looked Wilson hard in the eye and turned to leave the apartment, grabbing his keys and jacket on the way out.

[Line Break]

Thirteen, Taub, and Foreman sat in the DDx room, pondering any other possible causes for Cameron's rapid decline without much success. Kutner was still at the boy's bedside, trying to talk to him about his favorite movies, video games, toys, anything to keep his mind off the fact he probably wouldn't last until the end of the day.

"There's just not enough symptoms to work with here," Foreman complained.

Suddenly, a tall figure with a limp and cane stumbled into the DDx room. "Unless you idiots missed something," House spat at his team.

"Where the hell have you been all morning while we were stuck here with a dying five-year-old?" Taub's voice became sharp as he looked up at his boss.

"Masturbating." The diagnostician had already thrown off his jacket and turned on his heel out the door, down to the kid's room. The door slid open and House started with, "Kutner, out."

"I'm the one who's been here all morning! Don't screw with him, House. His last few hours should be spent happily," Kutner argued.

"I have the answer that you idiots missed. Leave," House barked again, and Kutner promptly left after shooting House a dirty look, then the door slid closed again behind him.

"You been eating much since you got here, kiddo?" House sat down next to his patient's bed, rubbing his thigh. Cameron shook his head overly hard and his neck popped loudly. "Didn't want to, really."

"Hey, don't do that to your neck." House opened up his backpack and pulled out one of the packages of fruit snacks he kept in there and opened it, then set it down on Cameron's tray. "This is important. Eat those for me." Cameron asked why then did as he was told, but struggled every time he had to swallow a bite. House sent an emergency page to his team as soon as the little boy was done.

The team came almost running in, then stopping abruptly when they saw their boss just sitting by a still-breathing patient's bed. "You emergency paged?" Thirteen breathed out.

"Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome," House stopped to pull out another package of fruit snacks to hand to the kid, "watch how he swallows while he eats them." The little boy did just as he did the first time, still having difficulty getting his food down.

"It's hard to swallow. Which is the last symptom of Lesch-Nyhan," Foreman reasoned, "but we didn't figure it out from grainy kidney stones and self-mutilation?"

"Apparently not. You idiots. The kidney stones show up because he overproduces uric acid, damaging the kidneys. He's probably been having this type of stone since he was a baby, Daddy Dearest just didn't pay enough attention. Now, go call up his father and tell him what's going on."

"If you know what's wrong with me, I'm going to be okay, right?" the confused little boy asked innocently. Nobody moved, they all knew the prognosis for Lesch-Nyhan. He'd be lucky to last until age twenty.

"Get his Dad in here. I don't care where he's at or what he's doing." House.

Thirteen left the room to call Cameron's father and he was there an hour later, e-mailing someone as he walked into the room. "Well?" he asked impatiently.

House cut straight to the chase. "Your son has Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. That's what's been making his kidneys fail, be sore all over, and self-mutilate."

"And? He'll be fine, why was I just pulled away from work?"

Cameron's small voice came up from his bed. "He's really busy, he has to work. You guys can just call him later since I'm okay."

"Shut up, Cameron, no adult wants to hear what you have to say," his father spat.

"Stay here with the kid," House instructed his team, and led the father outside. "Lesch-Nyhan is serious, and your son has a full blown case of it," the diagnostician urged. He was telling himself to stop, stop investing himself in this, but he couldn't. He was turning into the skinny, brunette Cameron.

"What about it? Treat him. You have my consent."

"This is serious. It doesn't go away with treatment, all it might do is handle symptoms. It'll be a miracle if he makes it to age twenty. And you don't care?" House was thoroughly disgusted with this shitty excuse of a father. He was worse than his own. He paced farther down the hall, out of the sight of the child's room with the businessman trailing behind.

The other man paused, as if taking in what his son's doctor had just told him. "He'll be fine," he finally said. "I never liked the kid that much anyway. Was always in the way, always asking questions, just a general pain in the ass. Probably his fault his mother left me."

House was almost shaking with anger at this point. He sounded just like his own father. _His fault, in the way, never liked you._ He knew, he just _knew_ he was abusing his son, even if that didn't cause his symptoms. With everything in him, House reared his arm back and threw a punch at the dad. A few seconds later, and the last thing he remembered was swinging his cane out and tripping backwards.

**A/N:** Oh my gosh. I'm sorry it took so long. :( I just had to keep re-writing it... but I made it really long, and I hope you guys like it! I just kept changing little details, and I had a devil of a time trying to decide how to make House have his little "epiphany." Ugh. But it's finally done! Super pumped because the next few chapters should hopefully go quick, then the story will be over!

Please let me know what you think! If you liked it, you hated it, leave me a little review!


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I'm fourteen years old, can I even legally own things?**

Gregory House woke up a while later to familiar hospital beeping sounds. His mind focused in and he squinted his eyes, only to realize he was lying in a hospital bed with Wilson above him, standing with his hands on his hips. House automatically bolted upright and grabbed for his right leg to confirm it was still there. Upon sitting up, his head felt like it might explode and his heart began racing.

"Hey, House, nothing was done to your leg. It's still there and in nearly the same condition it was before. Lie back down," Wilson calmly instructed his friend. He pushed him, slowly, cautiously, back onto the bed and repositioned his head so he could look up. "What the hell?" House asked. He remembered arguing with his patient's father, punching him, then finally swaying and swooping backwards.

"Your team informed me that you and Cameron's father left the room after giving the diagnosis. You, like an idiot, must have started arguing with him and started a fight, because they said it looked like you hit him first and then swung out your cane. Apparently, he grabbed it and you lost your balance, and now here you are," Wilson looked at him sternly. "Why would you do that?"

House remained silent and stared ahead. He knew why he did it. He didn't regret any of it.

"Of all the things you've done, and all the questions I could ask- of-of all the stupid things you've made me done and dumb games I've been tricked into playing, I can't believe you actually instigated a fight between yourself and a patient family member. What the hell were you thinking?" Wilson glared as he paced. "Not only could you have hurt yourself seriously, you could've hurt him and gotten the hospital sued! How immature and irresponsible can you be, House?"

House sat uncharacteristically quietly still. He had his reasons. He had his valid reasons. He needed nothing else. "Where is he?"

"The same place as you. He's got a concussion from the blow to his head and a nasty black eye, but he'll be fine. However, the hospital won't be if he decides to sue-" Wilson rambled on and House just looked on, ignoring his words and reading into everything else. The oncologist was still pacing, throwing his hands around, lecturing... House saw some hallucinated vortex form behind his best friend. It started small, then grew and grew around Wilson, forcefully sucking in everything from around the room. Finally, it reached House and slurped him up as well, and all he could do was see and analyze Wilson.

His tone had changed so quickly - starting with reassuring that House was okay, then changing to frustration, anger, and now to that of a lecturing, punishing father - the thought almost made House let out a dark laugh to himself. Wilson standing over a little version of him, pouring ice into a bathtub he almost always inhabited, pushing his shoulders down... then pulling him out and tossing him carelessly into a wall, but just so that his head would crack into the sink, and yanking him up by his shirt collar to spit and scream into his face. That he would never be a man, how weak and pathetic he was that he couldn't even stand... Wilson's usually gentle, all-knowing but stressed voice being used to torment an eleven-year-old child. His calloused and wise but still young hands coming across a little boy's face. Wrapping themselves around a skinny, pale neck, then locking that limp body out of the house for the night. Shivering. Cold. Back cut by the ice, legs a frozen, but burning red. Toes and fingers purple, and curly hair dripping wet.

He'd whimper through the first hours of the night, shake and shiver and curl in on himself and hope for death itself. Then, after a couple of hours of suffering, he'd regain most of his feeling back and pull himself together, then sit straight-backed against his tree. His tree. The only stable object that's ever been there in his life - was always for him when his Dad- no, Wilson - shoved him outside. It never left, never changed. Contemplating life and how to get out of it, a young Gregory House bounced his ball against the fence and back towards him, against the fence and back towards him, against the fence and back towards him until his lower back ached and the bark from _his tree_ was itchy against his skin. Finally, he'd stretch out, right next to his tree, and fitfully sleep on the grass until it was 6 AM and he could ask to go inside. Goosebumps would still pop up on his arms, his back would display angry bruises, and his neck would ache from sleeping on the ground all because of Wilson, Wilson hurting him like this.

Somewhere, House knew he was hallucinating. Or seizing. Or dreaming. Or something. This wasn't real. It was never Wilson that did that.

But wasn't it?

[Line Break]

"So I'm gonna die?" a little voice asked his doctors several hours after his father and the man with the cane left the room. They didn't really tell him what would happen. It just got really quiet, kind of like when his kindergarten room was loud and his teacher turned off the light. For some reason, it made all the kids get really quiet and sit down. But anyway, it was quiet in this room, too. And nobody had shut the lights off. Why was it so quiet? Had he done something wrong?

Kutner and Thirteen were the only ones in his room. He wondered where the other doctors were. The girl doctor gave him a soft smile and sat down at the edge of his bed and took his small, chewed-up hand into her long, thin one. Cameron noted how pretty her hands were - the nails were long and sharp and a deep midnight blue, the skin was soft, and the fingers were long and agile. She gently removed the tape and gauze from his hands and discarded of them.

"Shouldn't you be wearing gloves?" Cameron asked innocently.

"I'm not scared of you, Cam, and I don't really need them right now," Thirteen answered quickly, but gave him another of what she hoped was a reassuring smile. He seemed to accept the answer and settled for nipping at his tongue.

"Your hands look good there, Buddy," Kutner grinned down at the child, who then looked down sheepishly. It was true. The bandages helped deter him from biting. The nails weren't chewed down to the end and the tips weren't bleeding.

"Why would you be scared?" Cameron asked of Thirteen's earlier statement, ignoring Kutner other than flashing him a toothy smile. It was small, but there.

"Well, before we knew why you were sick-" she paused and Kutner handed her more gauze and tape. She went back to work on the little hands in front of her and resumed talking- "we had to be scared that you had something you could give us to make us sick, too. But now that we know what's wrong, and know that you can't give it to us, we're not scared. Got it?" she answered simply, hopefully in child's terms.

"Oh, okay." All that the two adults heard.

The truth was, though, he wanted to say a lot more. He wanted to ask so many more questions. Why hadn't anyone answered him? Tiny droplets of sweat formed beneath Cameron's sandy blond curls and his breathing pace quickened. He was going to die. They would answer if they had good news. Wouldn't they? Why wouldn't they?

He was never taken seriously when he wanted to know something. His dad never told him where his mom was, just told him it was his fault she was gone. Never told him what he had done to drive her away, just told him she hated him. Never even told him why she hated him, just told him how terrible of a child he was... and on and on and on. It was a never ending cycle. He didn't he even know who his mom was, why did she hate him? More importantly, why did his dad hate him?

He asked his teacher, Ms. Ramsey, the same one who turned out the lights to make all the kids be quiet why his mom wasn't there. He thought teachers knew everything.

_ "Ms. Ramsey, I have a question!" a little boy with light freckles approached her desk at recess. All the other kids were outside playing, and it was just him._

_ "And what's that, sweetheart?" she answered in a kindly teacher way. She'd taken a liking to the skinny, sweet boy who sat quietly in class, even though they'd only been in school about three weeks._

_ "Where's my mom?" he asked. He looked up at her with big eyes, waiting expectantly for an answer from the smartest lady on earth. _

_ Her smile faltered. She didn't know if he meant that she had walked out or just her current location. She had hoped it was the latter. "I'm sure she's just at work or running errands, Cameron," the thin, young teacher responded, hoping that was his answer._

_ "But she never comes home. Do people stay at work and do stuff all the time? And not come home? Or call or something?" He was getting nervous. This didn't sound like where his mom was, but she was a teacher. She knew everything._

_ "Well, has your father told you where she is?" she hoped desperately that nobody had walked out on this child. It was too sad to see her kids this young already in separated families._

_ "He told me she just left because I came. Why would she do that? Does she hate me?" He was almost begging for an answer that proved he was loved by someone. His eyes filled with crocodile tears when it took Ms. Ramsey a while to respond. His dad must have been right._

_ The teacher looked down at this boy and tucked her dark hair behind her frail ear. She urged herself to think on her feet to reassure him. Quickly, she knelt down to his level and gently grasped his grubby, five-year-old arm in her hands. "Oh no, Cameron, she doesn't hate you. Nobody could ever hate you. She's your mom, so she loves you very, very much." He accepted the answer with a nod and a sniffle, but knew he was being lied to. She must have left because of him. He was convinced._

Back in the present moment, he was also tired of being lied to. He wanted to know what was going on. All he needed was someone who would tell him the truth. The two young doctors in his room right now weren't really the type. As they charted something, he bit his lip and thought hard, then finally settled on one person he knew.

"Where's the doctor with the cane?"

**A/N:** Oh God, I am sorry, I am so sorry. I'm awful. I haven't updated in like three weeks. I'm terrible and I apologize. I've just pushed it off and procrastinated horribly. I would say that I'm taking some kind of pledge to update once a week, but I know I won't stick to that... oops. Anyway, I think we only have one, _maybe maybe maybe_ I could stretch to two chapters left of this story. Major sad face. :(

On the bright side, I have a homecoming date! I hope y'all are excited for me.

See you in the near future! I hope. Reviews make me feel bad about not updating ;)


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